Kids racist attitudes

I've been doing lessons this week with 16 year olds about racism and was shocked at their attitudes. A lot of them were openly racist and even after lots of discussion felt that their views were acceptable. It was deemed to be okay to be racist and not something they saw a need to change.
Lots admitted to getting their views from their parents who are very open about their racist views at home.
Made me feel really sad

I was teaching a smashing y8 group today and the book had a picture of Martin Luther King (we were doing erosion of all things). They asked who he was and why there is a statue of him at westminster abbey, so I filled them in. They were horrified when I explained segrigation in the 60s, most of them couldn't believe that it could have happened.

i just found that dd1 had been chatting to her mates on msn and accepted a file with such an awful racist title i cant even bring myself to write it down

the file had been deleted but the history was still up. When she got back i am afraid i got irate, and told her i dont ever want to have anything so offensive in my house again and told her that i find anything which is making fun of or putting down anything or anyone , which is not a lifestyle choice , extremely offensive and will not have it. I asked her what she would feel like if someone sent her a file called crazyspaz or something similar, would she still find it amusing? Have also told her that her "friend" is not welcome here, and i would think long and hard about what the point is of hanging out with someeone of those opinions.

It's really frightening how racism appears isn't it. I nearly posted a thread abour racism earlier in the week. DD (4y) was telling me "people with brown skin can't be princesses, only girls with pink skin can be a princess".

I was so shocked to hear this from my lovely little girl. She goes to a nursery with quite a mix of ethnic backgrounds. It came up in the context of her planning a game with the little girl over the road. We're caucasian. Neighbours are Afrocarib. They were going to play at dressing up but DD said X (neighbour) can't be a princess because she has brown skin

We talked it through and turned it into a game of "odd one out" (muummy's the odd one out because her eyes are blue, etc) but it left me feeling rather stunned

She certainly doesn't hear racism from us. Maybe time to turn the TV off...

My friend was called into her little girls nursery class. She is 4 yo. The teacher said she had been saying that no black or brown people could come to her house . My friend was mortified. Apparently the little girl had fallen out with one of her mixed race pals and decided this is how she would deal with it. No way did she get the views from home but this still made my friend feel terrible. I notice my dd (also 4) is much more aware of colour now and I have to tell her it's not necessary to say "See the black lady over there" when "see the lady" will do.

funny you should talk about racist attitudes in teenagers, herucules. I took my 10 year old son to see a youth drama group show yesterday evening. It was very entertaining with lots of musical numbers and jokes. But one thing stuck out. There was a lot of old fashioned racial typecasting - the irish character was thick and drank whiskey all the time, the Russians were threatening and wanted to do away with democracy, the chinese character ran a takeaway and no one could understand a word he said etc. My son didn't feel uncomfortable with it at all, but I did, and it worried me that my son couldn't see what I was getting at.

With children where do you draw the line between jokes about supposed national characteristics and racism?

HunkerMunker - I watched the videos of the blue eye/black eye work (by the US teacher) a couple of weeks ago at the prison. they use it as part of the bullying and discrimination programme whichall inmates do on entering our prison. It was really interesting and very alarming. And the children she originally did it with were very young.

It isn't just mixed race children - I know from going into school that many girls who have dark hair go through this. Apparently only Barbie is beautiful - blonde hair, blue eyes. I have heard of so much bullying going on alone these lines - the blonde girls ganging together and excluding any girls who don't conform to the "blonde princess" ideal. It's shocking, and it does start so young